President Aquino on Monday defended his July 27 State of the Nation Address (Sona) from critics, saying he did not have a record of making false claims.
The President made the statement a few hours before Vice President Jejomar Binay’s self-proclaimed “True Sona.”
“I don’t think I have a tradition or record of lying to anyone. I stand by what we said,” he told reporters after a speech at the Bureau of Internal Revenue anniversary.
Aquino said he was not bothered by criticisms against his Sona because “we are in a democracy, everybody is entitled to their opinion and as long as they conform to the rules and the laws of the land, they are free to speak their mind.”
He said he hoped that his former political ally would be truthful in his Sona. “One would hope that he would honor his pledge to serve the people and part of that is giving them the right information,” the President said.
In a message to Binay on his Twitter account, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said: “You clapped your hands for five years on issues that you claim are failures now.”
Sought for comment, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas lambasted the Vice President for using the bravery of the so-called “SAF 44” for advancing his political interest.
“For five years, he was praising the things he now calls a failure. He was part of it,” he said in a text message to the Inquirer.
“Worse, he politicized the heroism of the SAF 44. It’s not right,” said Roxas, chosen by the President as the Liberal Party standard-bearer in the elections next May.
Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano said Binay was attacking the administration to deflect attention away from the corruption allegations against him. “He is using 2016 to hide from corruption issues,” he told reporters.
Instead of claiming to know the true state of the nation, Binay should disclose his true statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, Cayetano said.
“The Vice President should look in the mirror, and the question he should answer is if he’s anticorruption, why does he refuse to be investigated?” he added.
Cayetano is a member of the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee which has been looking into allegations of corruption and ill-gotten wealth against Binay while he was mayor of Makati City.
Binay resigned from the Cabinet on June 22, saying he was through being the “punching bag” of administration allies in the Senate.
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, Binay’s staunch critic in the subcommittee, said that the Aquino administration had its own shortcomings, but the Vice President was not the proper person to talk about these.
“It’s the right message for some, but (Binay is) the wrong messenger,” Trillanes said in an ambush interview.
Since Binay was part of the administration for five years when the issues he raised had festered, he was no longer in a position to complain about these, he said.
Senate President Franklin Drilon said Binay’s statements against the administration came as no surprise. “That is expected, this is already the political season,” he said.